Building Ruidoso: Shaw Engineering celebrates 31 years in business

Shaw Engineering celebrates 31 years in business

Ruidoso engineer John Shaw sits on the rail that blocks the entrance to the Mescalero Lake dam, which he helped build in the early 1970s, as a centerpiece for a new tourism complex being created by the Mescalero Apache Tribe. (Dianne Stallings — Ruidoso News)

John and Judy Shaw of Shaw Engineering recently celebrated 31 years in business in Ruidoso. And in those 31 years the pair have left their fingerprints on more than 45 percent of the buildings and residences in Lincoln and Otero counties.

"Someone added it up one time — all of the buildings, businesses and residences and we discovered that we had done work on 47 percent of them," John Shaw said.

Grace O'Malley's for one. Cattle Baron's Restaurant, Lincoln Title Company, Visions Plaza, Casa Blanca, The Ruidoso Mortgage Building, Funtrackers, an addition on Coldwell Banker, and they helped design the first casino at Inn of the Mountain Gods and many other projects including hundreds of residences.

John and Judy Shaw of Shaw Engineering have left their fingerprints on nearly half of the structures in Lincoln and Otero counties. Grace O'Malley's was just one of many projects the Shaw's have helped engineer and design over their 31 years in business. (Courtesy)

John Shaw moved to Ruidoso from his hometown in Arkansas in 1972 to take on the daunting task of program manager facilitating the building of the Mescalero Lake Dam at Inn of the Mountain Gods. Judy Shaw had moved to Ruidoso in 1971 and along with her brother and sister-in-law opened up Recreation Village, the RV park on the corner of White Mountain and Mechem Drive. The two met and married, and when the dam project was completed in 1974, the pair were off on a whirlwind working tour of the globe. The oil boom had begun. First it was off to Houston for three years. Then off to Kuwait for a year. The Shaws spent four years in Venezuela and returned to Ruidoso thinking they would be headed back to Venezuela for another four-year run in the South American country.

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"While we were home we bought three houses here in Ruidoso to fix up and resell," John Shaw said. "It was the thing to do then and we did it thinking we were going back overseas. But the price of oil plunged from $30 a barrel to $9 a barrel over night. Needless to say we never made it back to Venezuela and now we just call them 'rent houses.'"

John Shaw said that times were sometimes lean during that period. "There were times during the years when the rent would not pay the bank notes," he said.

But John had his civil and structural engineering licenses and was a registered land surveyor.

"One day Judy said, 'Well, you've got all that stuff hanging on the wall, why don't you hang it out and use it,'" John recalled. "So we hung up our shingle and we've been here ever since."

Judy Shaw was an integral part of the business. With a master's degree in interior design from Texas Tech University, over the years she has drawn up the designs for many of the buildings, additions and homes in the area.

Much has changed in the 31 years since they hung out their shingle.

"It was out in the country when we first moved here," John Shaw said. "We saw the first traffic light go up on Sudderth and Mechem Drive. Back then if you left that corner there was nothing between there and where Farley's is except the cemetery and the church. It was nothing but woods."

Judy Shaw remembers folks saying that opening an RV park was crazy.

"When we started they said we were nuts and that people weren't going to pull trailers up here," she laughs.

But some things so remain the same. Shaw Engineering still is in its same location at 717 White Mountain Drive. John Shaw still has his professional license and there is always someone there to answer the phones.

"We're still here," Judy Shaw said. "We go into the office when we want to. We travel a lot. But we're still here and open for business."